It matters not of whom it is said, the expression "leading monetary economist" is self evidently an oxymoron.

Even if you have a large group of economists – in order to even out the different points of view – you will never obtain a consensus of any use. For example, the Treasury. Lots of economists. Have they ever been correct?

If they can't be, what function do they serve?

Do they even have a collective noun? A guess of economists… a deficit.

As for the rest of the article the title seems strangely misleading… If only because there is no case made for the RBA acting outside the rule of law.

Though apparently the rule the author prefers is that of Bagehot's thumb – if not his dictum.

Since 1913 The US Federal Reserve,a private group of Central Bankers have created most of the money for the US Govt to function.Thus today 100 yrs later they have Western Govts around the planet in their back pockets.

This private group of elites have large share holdings in all the major oil,military,chemical,pharma,resource,media and other financial institutions around the planet.They almost have total control of our Govts and industries.

So welcome to the 21st Century of modern serdom.

The author ignores the role that the electors confer on the Federal Government, that is, to manage the economy on their behalf.

Limited liability companies are only possible due to legislation and regulation. But the CEOs and boards all think that regulations are burdensome or unnecessary.

A Reserve Bank deciding to assist specific legal entities is picking winners and or favourites; the first is difficult and discriminatory, the second is corrupt.

Far better a central authority adjusting what Paul Keating called "the levers" of the economic situation than some other alternative.

Banking tends to be a monopolistic case and therefore deserves to be a strongly regulated, even nationalised, activity. In September 2008, the Labor Government rescued the banks by guaranteeing the investors funds. It may have been better to have bought them out for a fraction of the share price valuation.

The fact that the sharemarket now values the Which Bank at about ten times the price received on privatisation confirms the monopoly position the banks enjoy in an "industry" that does not fit any description of a productive enterprise.

Completely concur with Foyle.
Had the Irish or the Spanish gone down the Bank nationalisation road, their respective economies may not have tanked.
I think we would have been better served if our largesse had been supported by shares worth a similar value, and held in trust for us, until the banks recovered or fell?
As it seems to have turned out, all of the big four now seem to be largely owned by the same group of four large foreign investors/hedge funds.
And then we wonder, why there seems to be a history of collusion, or lack of genuinely robust competition among the big four?
Rhrosty.

Put ten economists in the same room and you'll come up with thirty different opinions?
A thirty year study conducted by an ivy league uni, followed 300 economists over a period of 30 years.
The study resulted in the following conclusions?
That economists as predictors of economic outcomes, did no better than a dart throwing monkey!
That those averages grew worse with their public reps or notoriety, with the best known performing the very worst?
Currently, all economic growth and the growth model is entirely predicated on population growth.
In an already overpopulated planet, it is simply not sustainable.
Australia is a very large land mass, but only the narrow green fringe will support sustainable populations, with climate change putting increasing downward pressure on those limitations.
Clearly, we and the world need to invent and accept a far more sustainable model, that simply disregards current economic modelling and mantras.
If management teaches just one thing, it teaches that there is always/always a better way to do things, and indeed, manage and grow an economy.
However, doing what you've always done gets you what you've always got; meaning, we do need to find and adopt a new way.
Which cannot ever be accomplished, if we simply reject new ideas out of hand, or on the basis of misinformation or quite blatant misunderstanding of different concepts, or their logical basis.
Rhrosty.

A few weeks back New Economic Perspectives posted the three blogs listed below. They are first rate comments by an amateur economist on the economic situations that have developed since Nixon took the USA, and consequently the world, off the gold standard in 1971.

I read the blogs at the time and saved the addresses together with the last few paragraphs of the first blog. They are all worth reading.

Few economic articles published on OLO make as much sense or present such well reasoned arguments, even those presented by professional economists.

As John Ralston Saul wrote;
"Many professional commentators and senior administrators in charge of economic questions tend to wrestle what is happening into their own terminology. Thus China and India are presented as success stories of Globalization, when their situations actually represent a quite different theory of how the world works.

Economists who have tied their careers to the Globalist truth are quite protected from reality by their tendency to talk mainly to each other and to do so in bullet- proof dialects that force what is happening in the world through their narrow methods of analysis. And so they remain convinced that it is all a matter of definitions or technical adjustments or the freeing-up of those markets."
(from "The Collapse of Globalism," " subtitled "And the Reinvention of the World'' Ch. 27 second page)

http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/modern-monetary-theory-overview-part-1.html#more-5233
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/modern-monetary-theory-overview-part-2.html#more-5235
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2013/04/modern-monetary-theory-overview-part-3.html#more-5238

That's not much help, Foyle.

>>A few weeks back New Economic Perspectives posted the three blogs listed below. They are first rate comments by an amateur economist...<<

For a start, they are not "three blogs", just one individual's theory, spread over three entries.

What is it about this theory that appeals to you, and why do you find it attractive? It is not reasonable to expect anyone on this thread to first read through the ideas expressed, then to dissect them here.

There are, I suspect, many reasons why the writer of the blog remains an amateur. One sentence, for example, stuck out like the proverbial canine genitalia:

"...in capitalist economies, valuable things and valued services are produced by the private sector. There are a few exceptions – public utilities, subway trains, etc. But as a rule, and in the vast majority of actual cases, useful and valuable *stuff* exists because the labor of workers has added value to already-valuable physical and natural resources."

Errrm... I wonder whether the author gave more than a passing thought to the impact on the economy of healthcare, which in the US already soaks up around 18% of GDP.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-13/health-care-spending-to-reach-20-of-u-s-economy-by-2021.html

He did give at one point an oblique reference to "artificially created monopolies like health insurance", which is more of a political statement than a sober evaluation of a complex topic. But to ignore totally the desirability of giving capitalism unfettered access to the health industry is to exhibit a willful blindness to social reality.

But that's all one can expect from amateurs, I guess.

Not every professional gets it right, of course. The GWS AFL Club, for example, is a highly professional outfit, with a salary cap north of nine million dollars, but they have yet to register a single win this season. Nevertheless, I doubt if any of the amateur spectators barracking from the terraces would make a significant dent in that record, if they were to take to the oval. Another way of saying, being an amateur doesn't make you a genius, even though you may be surrounded by dunderhead professionals.

The full version of my article is here:

http://sukritsabhlok.weebly.com/2/post/2013/05/the-rule-of-men-in-monetary-policy-lessons-from-australia.html

Foyle

“The author ignores the role that the electors confer on the Federal Government, that is, to manage the economy on their behalf.”

You ignore that that statement is pure fiction.

Only after you have refuted all the arguments in this article point by point can you maintain such blatant propaganda:
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/

“A Reserve Bank deciding to assist specific legal entities is picking winners and or favourites; the first is difficult and discriminatory, the second is corrupt.
Far better a central authority adjusting what Paul Keating called "the levers" of the economic situation than some other alternative.”

You’re contradicting yourself.

How could a central authority adjust “the levers” of the economic situation, without “assisting specific legal entities and picking winners or favourites”?

“Banking tends to be a monopolistic case and therefore deserves to be a strongly regulated, even nationalised, activity.”

In saying so,
1. what account of have you taken of government actively causing or exacerbating such monopolistic tendencies?
2. what account have you taken of the fact that government is itself a monopoly? Why don’t all the arguments against *potential* monopolies apply even moreso against government, since it is an *actual* monopoly of force?
3. you assert that government knows how to perform the essential purpose of financial markets. If this were true, then
a) why wouldn’t it be true of all markets?
b) why not abolish private property?

Rhostry

“Completely concur with Foyle.”
Then please answer the same questions?

”Clearly, we and the world need to invent and accept a far more sustainable model, that simply disregards current economic modelling and mantras.”

Aren’t you going to need economic theory to do that? And haven’t you just said that none of them make sense?

“Which cannot ever be accomplished, if we simply reject new ideas out of hand…”

All the so-called “models” of so-called “sustainability” are not “new ideas” – they’re just the same old same old idea of unlimited arbitrary government power controlling anything and everything.

“…or their logical basis.”

The idea that government is capable of promoting sustainability *completely lacks* a logical basis: see http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5753&page=0

Private banks should not be allowed to create from nothing the money to equal increases in our productivity + inflation.This means that a few private elites can own the creativity and hard work of the very masses whom they falsely proport to represent.

When even our inflationary money gets created as debt,total enslavement by a few elites is the inevitable result.

Currently in OZ we have 3% growth + 3% inflation.Our private banking system creates both as debt.The debt can never be repaid because imputs in terms of loans will always be greater than debt + inflationary debt in terms of outputs.This is a mathematical reality that people like Pericles cannot address.

Suck it up long and hard Pericles since you and your ilk are economic dinosaurs.

JkJ. We elect the Govt, that Govt then makes decisions in our name. From my reading, this is what Foyle was saying.
As I read him, he also seems to think that we should never ever believe banks are too big to fail, nor should failing banks be propped up with Govt money.
Or, that we shouldn't socialize private debt, without also socializing subsequent profits!?
If Govt money is to be risked, said banks should be nationalised first, by buying up bargain basement shares, for a fraction of what they might command, if propped up with Govt money!
And we do need to adopt very different economic models, given the flawed ones we rely on now, have placed us where we are now; and created both the Great Depression and the GFC.
And the ever widening gap between the haves and have nots.
This is counter intuitive, given narrowing that gap, would increase the discretionary spending power of the masses, which in turn would increase general economic activity!
Which by the way, seems to be the central argument Tony Abbott is relying on, to support his version of paid maternity leave?
I concur with Foyle's post, inasmuch as most of what he seems to be saying, resonates with what I believe to be correct.
The test of true intelligence, is the ability to hold two countervailing views in mind, and give equal weight to both.
I think its called, keeping an open mind.
Rhrosty.

Rhostry
“We elect the Govt, that Govt then makes decisions in our name. From my reading, this is what Foyle was saying.”

What he said was that the electors confer power on the government to manage the economy on their behalf.

Certainly the government claims to make decisions in society’s name. The point is however, that the electoral system provides no evidence whatosever that any given act of government in fact represents the majority of electors, let alone society.

“As I read him, he also seems to think that we should never ever believe banks are too big to fail”,

I agree we shouldn’t. I don’t know that’s what Foyle is saying.

“nor should failing banks be propped up with Govt money.”

Agreed. But I think you’ll find Foyle is in favour of propping up failing banks with government money. Foyle?

“Or, that we shouldn't socialize private debt, without also socializing subsequent profits!?”

(When you say “we”, you mean the State. The State is not “us”.) The State shouldn’t socialize private debt. If it’s doing so, the remedy is to stop doing it, not to socialize something else as well.

I think you’ll find Foyle is in favour of socializing private debt, because fractional reserve banking intrinsically does so. Foyle?

“If Govt money is to be risked…”

Government money shouldn’t be risked on banks in the first place. It assumes governments know how to perform the function of financial markets without consulting profit and loss. Both Foyle and you have evaded answering how it can do that.

“ said banks should be nationalised first, by buying up bargain basement shares, for a fraction of what they might command, if propped up with Govt money!”

Well we’re agreed government money has a corrupting influence on banking!

“And we do need to adopt very different economic models, given the flawed ones we rely on now, have placed us where we are now; and created both the Great Depression and the GFC.”

The flawed models that created both the Gread Depression and the GFC, involve government monopoly control of the supply of money and credit. Foyle is in favour of that. He’s not proposing a free market in money and credit, subject only to a ban on fraud, is he? No. He’s not proposing a new economic perspective at all; he’s proposing the old economic perspective that caused both the GD and the GFC with government, in cahoots with their cronies the banks, licensed to commit as much fraud as they can politically get away with.

Foyle, isn’t it true you are in favour of:
1. Government having a legal monopoly of fiat money and criminalizing the competition in the supply of money which people would prefer to government's constantly inflated paper rubbish?
2. Government having a legal monopoly power to manipulate interest rates which it can use to inflate the supply of money substitutes at will, thus thieving billions from the ordinary working people and giving it to the government-created fractional reserve banking cartel, at the same time causing recessions which marxoid and Keynesian ignoramuses then blame on non-existent "unregulated capitalism"?

JKJ. Economic theory is just that, theory!
And if one theory creates a Great Depression and or a GFC? Then surely any individual of even just average intelligence would concede, that there could be flaws in it, based on outcomes or results?
In science, we'd call it the law of cause and effect, or for every effect there is s cause, and for every cause there is an effect.
Throw a stone into a pond, and you will always get ripples.
And if you're not getting the desired outcome, then surely, you'd try something else or different.
Now, we simply can't keep growing our population numbers, or retain an economic model completely predicated on unsustainable population growth?
We approach a point by 2050, where to feed the world, we will need to double food production?
Moreover, mass produced and transported food has a minimum energy component, which as things stand, can only ever become comparatively more expensive, as will every good or product that in any way relies on it.
Food production also depends on reliable water!
And more food production equates to more water, and more investment in necessary associated infrastructure!
So all of those things and or their current apparent lack, persuades me, we need a different economic model.
Rather than simply reject it all and create in it's place an economic void or vacuum, which you seem, in your seemingly unnecessarily overaggressive inquisition, to be suggesting, is my goal?
That's simply incorrect and entirely misrepresents my often advocated position; and or, preferred economic paradigms!
Rhrosty.

Now, we simply can't keep growing our population numbers, or retain an economic model completely predicated on unsustainable population growth?

Hmmmm, now will some informed person kindly advise me that if some of us can see that as clear as daylight, why can't bloodsucking parasite politicians / their advisers / cronies / assorted hangers-on, economists / multinationals / all manner of educated idiot 'experts' ??
The economic growth paradigm is horribly similar to cancer ... just like someone pointed out when I suggested cancer is the only example of unlimited growth in nature .... cancer eventually kills its host.

I don't know that I agree with the term 'rule of law'. Maybe 'the law' was something to respect back when Thomas More wrote 'Utopia', but these days its nothing more than a dirty big stick with which to abuse the people. I suggest there is probably an agreement of sorts between the legal / judicial establishment & the consortium of banksters. Both possess the 'born to rule' gene but both have some kind of 'respect' (as in fear) of the power wielded by the other. Both view money & power as interchangeable ... take one out of circulation and their whole system collapses. Ultimately this is exactly what will end the era of legal & financial control of the masses.

You are full of it, aren't you Arjay.

>>Currently in OZ we have 3% growth + 3% inflation.Our private banking system creates both as debt.The debt can never be repaid because imputs in terms of loans will always be greater than debt + inflationary debt in terms of outputs.This is a mathematical reality that people like Pericles cannot address.<<

I'm willing to bet that you haven't the faintest clue what this means. The reason why I can be so sure of this, is that it is nothing more than meaningless gibberish. Just a bunch of mashed-up slogans that you have unearthed from the internet, and blindly copy/pasted here.

You could always prove me wrong by explaining what you mean when you say that the private banking system creates our GDP growth as debt. Once you have done that, you can explain exactly why that debt cannot be repaid, and we can work from there.

But don't worry, I shan't be holding my breath in the meantime.

Well Pericles address the reality of imputs interms of loans from private banksters,cannnot be repaid by outputs in terms of debt by us, on both increases in productivity + inflation. In this present system the more growth we have ,the more debt we incur.

Money is not wealth.Money should be the medium of exchange but the criminal banksters and Wall st have turned it into a commodity that trades in human misery.

You have to better than just pathetic ad hominem

Rhostry
(It’s not me who’s being aggressive – it’s you two. You’re advocating the State violating the freedoms and property rights of people – including me - who don’t agree with you. I’m just pointing out that your reasons don’t make sense, even in terms of your own theories. Perhaps you should re-think them?)


“ Economic theory is just that, theory!”

Not sure what you’re getting at there.

I thought you were saying that economic theory has no more explaining power than a monkey throwing darts – in other words, no better than random.

If that’s what you’re saying, then obviously the same applies to your economic theory?

Facts don’t interpret themselves. That requires theory. If so, you yourself must be using theory – which according to you is not reliable – in saying that the GFC or GD were because of excessively free markets, rather than because of governmental intervention.

And the same goes with your idea that a “new economic model” is indicated for “sustainability”. This presupposes that your diagnosis is correct, which requires economic theory. And it presupposes that your remedy is possible, and won’t make the situation worse. How do you know that without using economic theory?

You seem caught in a self-contradiction. Either you have no way of distinguishing good theory from bad, in which case you disqualify your statist opinion that the solution is even more arbitrary government power and violations of freedom.

Or you assert that your theory (or Foyle’s) has superior explaining power, in which case it must withstand critical scrutiny.

Foyle’s doesn’t, which is why he can’t answer my questions. He knows if he does, he’ll prove his own theory wrong.

There are numerous objections to his and your theory blaming “neoliberal” policies for the GFC.

1.
You need economic theory to justify that, and your own theory of economic theory doesn’t permit your conclusion.

2.
“Neoliberal” is not a term that any school of economics uses to describe itself. It is a term of abuse by marxoids/Keynesians that actively confuses free market and interventionist policies and issues.

3.
Foyle’s “New Economic Perspectives” takes as its framework a “modern, fiat money system”. Thus it is intrinsically unsuited to a critique of the status quo, since it does not set out to question it, but to preserve it.

4.
Foyle’s NEP doesn’t aim to achieve sustainability; it aims to “address how policymakers … should address … the continued weakness in their economies” (translation: promote economic growth).

5.
It assumes that “economies” belong to “their” “policymakers” – the government. In other words, it’s national socialist. Government owns the economy and all the property. There is no right to freedom or property but what the government unilaterally decides not to confiscate. The people are some kind of chattel for the government to manipulate by violating their freedoms and properties as it sees fit.

6.
It assumes the representative theory of government ,which is demolished in the link I posted in challenge to Foyle: http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/

He hasn’t answered it because he can’t: his statist theory is fiction.

7.
Foyle, like NEP, assumes without ever examining, or justifying their conclusion that the GFC was caused by excessively free markets rather than by excessive government intervention.

8.
Yet at all relevant times all the relevant governments claimed and exercised monopoly powers over the supply of money and credit. According to you guys’ theory, the fact that government was actively manipulating interest rates, and the fact that the financial crises arose in the financial markets, is just some kind of strange coincidence – nothing to do with economics!

9.
Foyle’s theory assumes that government has the competence to manage financial markets, including the supply of money and credit. Yet obviously, if the assumption were true, the GD and GFC would never have happened in the first place.
So the technique is, any crisis, consequential on governmental manipulation of the money supply, is just met by squarking “neoliberal!” and assuming the problem is “unregulated capitalism”.

10.
No justification if ever given for the assumption that government knows how to perform the essential functions of financial markets.

But if it’s true, why doesn’t it apply to all markets?

11.
If it’s true, why not have full socialism? Why don’t Foyle’s objections to full socialism apply to his own argument?

12.
Of course when challenged the interventionists like Foyle and NEP immediately resile from their logic in favour of full socialism. They assert instead the need for some kind of “balance” between consent-based transactions (private goods) and violence-based transactions (so-called “public goods” – as if goods in general aren’t for people. Translation: State-provided goods).
But when asked by what *rational principle* they define that balance, they go quiet, slink off without answering as Foyle did, and pop up somewhere else re-running the same vapid statist *slogans* they cannot defend in honest argument.

13.
Although Foyle talks about “new” economic theories and ideas, there is nothing new about ‘em. They are just EXACTLY THE SAME ideas as the national socialists’: the problem is too much personal freedom and private property; the solution is more unlimited arbitrary government power; printing money creates real wealth for society; society is made richer by more debt, more inflation, more taxes, more political power, more socialism.

14.
The Keynesian theory is that booms arise from mere irrationally exuberant spirits. It’s a theory of psychology, not economics. Furthermore it’s circular. The boom is explained by the exuberant spirits; but the proof of the exuberant spirits, is the boom. It does not take account of the more obvious *economic* explanation – the inflation of the supply of money substitutes, which is what central banks do.

15.
All the economists who declare the problem is not enough government, JUST HAPPEN to be government dependants and high priests! “It’s amazing how hard it is for some people to understand some things, when their income depends on not understanding it.”

16.
Austrian school (http://www.mises.org) theory provides a much more realistic, logical, simpler, and cogent economic explanation of economic booms and busts by reference to the far more obvious cause – manipulations of the supply of money and credit!
http://mises.org/tradcycl/econdepr.asp

“What Has Government Done to Our Money?” by Murray Rothbard
http://mises.org/books/whathasgovernmentdone.pdf

“The Mystery of Banking” by Murray Rothbard
http://mises.org/Books/mysteryofbanking.pdf

"Economics in One Lesson" by Henry Hazlitt
http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

The statists can’t and don’t refute Austrian theory, that’s why Foyle scurried off when I challenged him.

Thus I think I have shown good reasons why you should re-consider your statist opinions.

“And if one theory creates a Great Depression and or a GFC? Then surely any individual of even just average intelligence would concede, that there could be flaws in it, based on outcomes or results?”

Yes indeedy. The theory and policy causing those results is that government has the competence to manage the supply of money and credit; else what are your answers to my 16 points above?

(Also how can you criticize capitalism for depressions (not enough production) while simultaneously criticizing it for unsustainability (too much)?

“In science, we'd call it the law of cause and effect, or for every effect there is s cause, and for every cause there is an effect.
Throw a stone into a pond, and you will always get ripples.”

Yes but according to your theory, you’re incapable of distinguishing cause and effect, because that would require economic theory that is no better than a dart-throwing monkey, remember?

“Now, we simply can't keep growing our population numbers, or retain an economic model completely predicated on unsustainable population growth?”

See how you’re assuming that people are some kind of chattel, and their property some kind of “economic model”, belonging to the State?

“We approach a point by 2050, where to feed the world, we will need to double food production?”

And the solution is more government control of production and the money supply? What on earth makes you think that’s going to be more productive, responsive or humane?

“… we need a different economic model.”

How about freedom for a change? Now *that* would be a new economic perspective, wouldn’t it?

The superstitious belief that government can promote sustainability is demolished here:
http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=5753&page=0

Thanks Arjay.

>>Well Pericles address the reality of imputs interms of loans from private banksters,cannnot be repaid by outputs in terms of debt by us, on both increases in productivity + inflation. In this present system the more growth we have ,the more debt we incur.<<

I rest my case.

Pericles,you don't want to understand.

Even our inflationary money gets created as debt by private banksters.In a $1.5 trillion economy with 3% inflation $45 billion pa is created as debt.This is over $4000.00 per working person pa plus interest that we the people of this country lose every year and it is compounding interest.

With inflationary money we lose out three times.First with the depreciation of our currency,then the principal created by private banks from nothing,then the interest to be paid on that principal.

I have yet to address the creation from nothing money to equal growth which private banks practise daily with a similar result.ie monetary slavery for the masses.

Debt should only be attached to money that already exists,since new money for growth represents the productivity of all society and not a select elite few parasites who create nothing of tangible worth.

Arjay, you have never explained or justified your belief that the money supply needs to be inflated in line with population or productivity growth; nor your ridiculous belief that an increase in someone's productivity presumptively belongs to "all of us".

But in any case, you have never explained how inflating the money supply is going to be improved by replacing government-licensed banks with ... government-licensed banks.

JKJ,The truth is self evident.I don't have to justify the truth and reality.Money has no worth unless it is backed by human productivity.Money costs nothing to produce.The private banks by creating money from nothing own they productivity and create it as debt.This is a theft on many levels.

This system actually keeps most people on this planet in poverty because only a few control the creation of money.

Arjay
You still haven't explained or justified your belief that the money supply needs to be inflated in line with population or productivity growth. Money also would be worth nothing without the existence of oxygen, or sunshine, or land. So what? That doesn't mean the government should have a monopoly over the supply of money, and even if it did, it wouldn't mean it needs to constantly inflate the supply of it.

Furthermore if you figure out a way to make your work more productive, why does that increase in productivity presumptively belong to "all of us", rather than to you? And if it does, why only the people in Australia?

"The private banks by creating money from nothing own they productivity and create it as debt.This is a theft on many levels."

Actually they're creating money substitutes, not money in specie.

You are ignoring the facts that
a) government licenses them to do it, and that
b) in the absence of that governmental permission it would otherwise be illegal as against the law of fraud.

And you're not suggesting government shouldn't have the right to do that, are you? No. You're suggesting that instead of the theft being carried out by government-licensed banks, it should be carried out by government-licensed banks, aren't you? Yes.

So:
a) why would that be any improvement?, and
b) wouldn't it be more to the point to abolish the governmental power to license theft in the first place?

You are blowing hot and cold. On the one hand you allege a need for government to constantly inflate the money supply; and then you blame the instrument by which government achieves this end.

JKJ,why cannot you as an individual,go to your garage and create money from nothing just like a few elite banksters?

You think money is wealth, when in fact the wealth exists in the skills and intelligence of all in our society.Money is the medium of exchange for this interaction of skills and knowledge to happen.It's supply should not be controlled by and elite few since they can then pervert it's function and have absolute power over us.

The basic question is,who should own our skills and intelligence? Private Banksters who create money with the click of a computer mouse or the people who toiled to achieve it?

Western Govts today are controlled by private banksters since they can no longer create their own money.It is called modern serfdom.

Arjay

So why is that an argument in favour of government
a) having a monopoly power to issue money?
b) having a monopoly power to manipulate interest rates?
c) to inflate the money supply?

I don't think "money is wealth" and you are not in a position to tell me what I think. You are also not in a position to talk down to me about monetary theory, because you haven't explained why you're not contradicting yourself. Answer the question: you think the government should license banks to inflate the money supply; why would that be better than the original problem which is government licensing banks to inflate the money supply?

There's nothing stopping you doing exactly that, Arjay.

>>JKJ,why cannot you as an individual,go to your garage and create money from nothing just like a few elite banksters?<<

Just be careful not to try to pass it off as legal tender. Folks get pretty miffed if you try that.

The real problem, though, is trying to get someone to accept it in exchange for goods and services. My tip: stick with the genuine article.

Yes, when I tried to buy a TV at Harvey Normans they weren't willing to accept my "Jardine dollars", which had some fancy scrollwork put there by a Spirograph, and calligraphy saying "The governor of the central bank of the Commonwealth of Jardinistan promises to pay the bearer on demand 1 (one) Jardine dollar: signed: Jardine K. Jardine, Governor". They wouldn't swap a TV for my money, even though the stamp on it carried the full authority of the issuing authority - me.

And when I tried it with my own home-made version of the Commonwealth of Australia's own "banknote", complete with fancy scrollwork and promises based on thin air, I was taken away in handcuffs and locked in a cage.

However the question is, what make the "genuine article" of "money", whose value comes from the authority of the stamp thereon, any more genuine, than the readiness and ability of the Commonwealth's monopoly forces, to do just that?

I think you may be missing a vital point here, Jardine K. Jardine.

>>However the question is, what make the "genuine article" of "money", whose value comes from the authority of the stamp thereon, any more genuine, than the readiness and ability of the Commonwealth's monopoly forces, to do just that?<<

The "Commonwealth's monopoly forces" have very little to do with it, when it comes to exchanging TV sets for pieces of paper, or even computer transactions that indirectly refer to those pieces of paper.

The "forces" are with the retailer, to ether accept or reject the pieces of paper/computer transaction as they see fit.

Trust (in the system that supports it) is at the epicentre of that value exchange, and all related value exchanges. When trust in the instrument fails (e.g. Germany 1923, Greece 1944, Zimbabwe passim) the government is swept along with the tide. Only through a form of linguistic sleight-of-hand, when they decide to announce that e.g. "1 new drachma equals 50,000,000,000 old drachmai" (Greece 1944) can the panic subside a little.

Interesting to note that when Hungary introduced the forint in 1946, the total foreign exchange value of all the Hungarian banknotes in circulation was one tenth of one US cent. The country's GDP presently stands at close to 45 trillion forints, or US$200 billion. The actual "value" of an economy maintains only an indirect relationship with the number of pieces of paper, and what is written on them.

The value of money does not come, as you suggest, "from the authority of the stamp thereon", but from the willingness of the people to use it. If the Jardine dollar were backed by a reputable undertaking in which the public had sufficient trust (which comes down to its being freely exchangeable) it would surely be accepted at Harvey Norman. After all, three commercial enterprises in Scotland still issue their own banknotes today, and these are acknowledged as having a specific value, even though they are not legal tender.

Counterfeiting however - whether the forint, Drachma or Jardine dollar - remains fraudulent, and is a criminal offence.

And so what role do the legal tender laws play in this do you think?

I think you will find that the Currency Act is the relevant legislation, Jardine K. Jardine.

>>...what role do the legal tender laws play in this do you think?<<

Section 9 of the Currency Act of 1965 appears to cover your situation:

"Subject to this section, every sale, every bill of exchange or promissory note, every security for money, and every other contract, agreement, deed, instrument, transaction, dealing, matter or thing relating to money, or involving the payment of, or a liability to pay, money, that is made, executed, entered into or done, shall, unless it is made, executed, entered into or done according to the currency of some country other than Australia, be made, executed, entered into or done according to the currency of Australia provided for by this Act."

The example that illustrates how this will affect your Jardine dollar is that of the Scottish Banks, whose notes do not qualify as legal tender, but are instead promissory notes. This allows them to conform to the above (our system is pretty similar to the UK on this topic) in that they are denominated in the currency of the United Kingdom. Your Jardine dollar could follow this format, i.e. use the Aussie dollar as its denomination, just so long as it doesn't represent itself as legal tender.

Alternatively, you could set up the Commonwealth of Jardinistan as a foreign country, in which case the Jardine dollar would be a foreign currency, leaving you free to establish a separate exchange rate against the Aussie.

Thank you for that reference.

So given that my Jardine dollars must be denominated in Commonwealth dollars, why is it true to say:
"The "Commonwealth's monopoly forces" have very little to do with it, when it comes to exchanging TV sets for pieces of paper, or even computer transactions that indirectly refer to those pieces of paper."?

And why is it true to say:
"The value of money does not come, as you suggest, "from the authority of the stamp thereon", but from the willingness of the people to use it. "
given that, even if the people were not willing to use it, they are not free to use their preferred money?

Although in general it's true that the value of something comes from the subjective preferences of the people buying or selling it, my point is that in the case of fiat money, the State forcibly overrides what people would value more, and substitutes what people value less, on pain of imprisonment if you don't agree.

By this means it is able to foist its inferior money on the populace, at the same time as rip them off through constantly inflating it. If it were true that the people really preferred it, there would be no need for Section 9 of the Currency Act, would there?

I preferred the good old days when all someone needed to know about money was that they didn't have enough.

If money comprehension is complicated locally, Pericles, it is more so internationally as you exampled (last week I heard commenters on BBC radio complaining because London taxi drivers refuse to accept Scottish pounds).

Before the GFC I was advised not to be caught holding Vietnamese dong.

But that is another story...

We know Hayek hoped, "The public will have to learn to select among a variety of monies, and to choose those which are good." but it sounds like an unnecessarily inefficient method of buying a loaf of bread.

One test would be that my money was 'good' for any purpose to which I wished it to apply.

I understand the currency concept of a note having a notional extrinsic value and all that, but with Jardine dollars (or Jardinieres as I think they should be called to distinguish them from inferior fiat money) I am still not clear whether they work like an IOU.

Would it be worth or is it not worth the paper it's printed on? How can I be confident, whatever its amount, in case it is worthmore or worthless?

This is critical to any economic calculation I wish to undertake. If there isn't a lowest common denominated currency how would I know?

You only selected one of the alternatives, Jardine K. Jardine. And even that does not tell the whole story.

>>So given that my Jardine dollars must be denominated in Commonwealth dollars...<<

Despite the "face value" implications of being linked to the Australian dollar, there is no reason on earth why those folk who choose to use the Jardine dollar as currency shouldn't value it differently. Witness the many countries who operate an official exchange rate for currency bought on the open market, but understand that there is a different rate for "off-market" transactions.

You would not be able to use the banking system itself as an exchange medium, of course, but apart from that you are completely free to operate as you see fit. Perhaps you should also take a look at Bitcoin, as further inspiration for your alternative currency ambitions.

It is a little disappointing too, that you didn't consider the establishment of your own country as an option. Australia is famous for hosting a number micronations within its borders, which operate under their own government. Some indeed issue their own banknotes and coins - the Principality of Hutt River being the most familiar.

I can well understand why taking this option might be a difficult step for you to consider, not least for the ridicule you would receive from friends and acquaintances. But to take the stand that you do...

>>...my point is that in the case of fiat money, the State forcibly overrides what people would value more, and substitutes what people value less, on pain of imprisonment if you don't agree<<

...really ought to require one or two small sacrifices, over and above the ability to fulminate on a public forum. Actions speak far louder than words, after all, so if the situation genuinely disturbs you, and there are clear alternatives, as I have outlined, you really should consider them.

That is a problem that that is only peripherally associated with banknotes, WmTrevor.

>>...last week I heard commenters on BBC radio complaining because London taxi drivers refuse to accept Scottish pounds<<

It is a universally acknowledged position that dates back to the 1707 Act of Union.

The reality is that neither the English nor the Scots have ever fully accepted the joining of the two countries into a single unit. Both are equally to blame, by the way. I recall vividly the experience of trying to buy a pint of heavy in a Glasgow pub with an "English" banknote. Not an exercise I feel inclined to repeat.

Fortunately for my physical wellbeing, it was back in the days when quite a large amount of beer could be purchased with a relatively small number of coins. The barman obligingly accepted my "English" money in this fashion, an irony that I resisted pointing out to him.

Back to the cabbies, though. It is just as likely these days that the driver's birthplace was far distant from London, or indeed Glasgow, and that his awareness of the Clydesdale Bank's note-issuing capability is scant or non-existent. While this differs from the snarling cockney's "Wotjer call this, guvna" in its provenance, the ultimate effect is the same.

Here's a snippet on the topic from the Guardian:

"The Association of Commercial Banknote Issuers states: 'The term <legal tender> has very little practical meaning as far as ordinary, everyday transactions are concerned, and it has no bearing on the acceptability of authorised banknotes as a means of payment …' Crucially, it adds: 'The acceptability of any means of payment, including banknotes, is essentially a matter for agreement between the parties involved.'"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2012/sep/12/can-i-spend-scottish-money-england

Remember Bannockburn!

"Remember Bannockburn!"

There is now a cream you can get that will provide some relief for that...

Wm Trevor
>>I understand the currency concept of a note having a notional extrinsic value and all that, but … I am still not clear whether they work like an IOU.”

That’s the issue.

We need to distinguish between money in the narrow sense – money in specie – e.g. gold where gold is money, and Commonwealth “banknotes” in Australia, on the one hand; and money substitutes such as cheques, IOUs, promissory notes on the other. The difference is that if the payment by money substitute is disputed, final settlement is made in money in specie.

The effect of Section 9 is to enact that I can’t use Jardine dollars as money, but only as money substitutes.

Pericles is only proving that *exchange* could still take place with Jardine dollars, but then, it could – and does - using cans of diesel too, but that doesn’t make diesel “money”, does it?

>>“Would it be worth or is it not worth the paper it's printed on? How can I be confident, whatever its amount, in case it is worthmore or worthless?

That’s the whole point. No-one would accept my Jardine dollar (if they had any sense). But the Commonwealth’s plastic rubbish is not any more intrinsically valuable. The only reason they are able to give it currency is by making it illegal to use any other preferred money (except that of another State running the same monopolistic racket).

“This is critical to any economic calculation I wish to undertake. If there isn't a lowest common denominated currency how would I know?”

The effect and function of money – any money – is to provide a lowest common denominator value in which such calculation can be made. That’s largely why money comes into existence.

However the very fact that people have to be forced into using fiat money by making it illegal and onerously impractical to use any other money, proves that, if they were free to choose, they’d choose other, better, more “money-like” money – namely, money whose purchasing power wasn’t being constantly eroded - confiscated - by government’s inflationary abuses

Pericles

Then what, according to you, is the point of legal tender laws?

BTW I actually did look into seceding. I had a number of very interesting conversations with a lady who styles herself Princess Paula, of Snake Hill Principality, a little-known micro nation near Mudgee. Contrary to popular opinion, secession is not “illegal” and does not require the permission of the host state. If it did, obviously a lot of states would never have come into existence, not least of which is the USA. And Australia recognises the international human right of self-determination of peoples. It was on that basis that Australia sent troops to East Timor, and supported Kosovo. The international law of self-determination does not stipulate any minimum *number* of people necessary to constitute a state, so theoretically my own property would be enough – it was for Hutt River and Snake Hill.

They key requirement is the recognition of other states. Princess Paula told me that the easiest part was getting the recognition of Heads of State, which she had evidenced by having received Christmas cards addressed to her in her official capacity and royal style from the Queen, Barack Obama, the G-G, and other assorted states.

She said the hardest part is getting it through the thick heads of the clerks at the Mudgee shire council when you tell them you’re not actually part of Australia; and other petty clerks. (You don’t lose your Aussie citizenship by seceding BTW; the State secedes, not the person.) Anyway she said her whole life is consumed with explaining the international law of statehood and secession to minor clerks who lack the ability or inclination to understand.

And I have other reasons for not wanting to devote my life to secession.

However I didn’t address secession because
a) it’s not a “small sacrifice”; and the very fact that one would have to secede in order to have the freedom to choose what money one wants to use, proves my point.
b) Section 9’s provision for other “countries” [translation: States'] currencies only takes the issues about fiat money to one further remove. It doesn’t change the fact that fiat money exists only by virtue of an exercise of power by the State running what is, in effect, a monopolistic and parasitic racket.

To the extent that money is fiat currency, that means the issuing State is forcibly overriding its users’ preferences; substituting inferior money they value less, by threatening to impose a far greater loss of value; when its users would prefer other money, with better monetary qualities (namely, its purchasing power not being constantly inflated away). If this were not so, obviously there would be no need to impose onerous criminal or pragmatic disincentives on preferring the better competition to government’s scamolicious fiat rubbish, would there?

This doesn't actually support your argument, Jardine K. Jardine.

>>Pericles is only proving that *exchange* could still take place with Jardine dollars, but then, it could – and does - using cans of diesel too, but that doesn’t make diesel “money”, does it? <<

In the sense that diesel is a fuel derived from a mineral, and gold is also a mineral, both are equally valid as means of exchange. Or "money", in the vernacular.

Your disdain for "fiat currency" is misplaced - it actually saves us from having to carry lumps of gold, or cans of petrol, around with us, in order to buy a loaf of bread. Which leads us to the nub of your argument, does it not...

>>However the very fact that people have to be forced into using fiat money by making it illegal and onerously impractical to use any other money, proves that, if they were free to choose, they’d choose other, better, more “money-like” money – namely, money whose purchasing power wasn’t being constantly eroded - confiscated - by government’s inflationary abuses<<

I can't see too many people getting excited about choosing a different currency, even if were simple to do so. All that would happen is that we would be constantly bartering, working out how many cans of oil we would need in order to buy a car.

Or did you have something else in mind?

Pericles

"In the sense that diesel is a fuel derived from a mineral, and gold is also a mineral, both are equally valid as means of exchange. Or "money", in the vernacular."

You seem to be confusing means of exchange with money, and vice versa.

"I can't see too many people getting excited about choosing a different currency, even if were simple to do so."

The question is not whether you think so, it's whether everyone else does. Obviously they don't agree with you, or it wouldn't be necessary to forcibly restrict their freedom to choose, would it?

"All that would happen is that we would be constantly bartering, working out how many cans of oil we would need in order to buy a car."

That sentence shows a confusion over basic monetary theory. On the one hand, you're confusing means of exchange with money; hence your identification of barter goods with money and vice versa; and hence your confusion of a barter economy with a money economy.

On the other hand, you're confusing fiat currency with money in general, thinking that, just because fiat currency performs the function of money, therefore nothing else would or could, and geting rid of fiat money would mean going back to a barter economy. The shortage of understanding is yours, not mine.

"Or did you have something else in mind?"

Please you answer my question first. What, according to you, is the point of legal tender laws?

I am sure you are making some very important points here, Jardine K. Jardine. Unfortunately, I can't make head nor tail of them.

>>You seem to be confusing means of exchange with money, and vice versa<<

Are you suggesting that money is not a means of exchange? In my estimation, money is one of the most efficient means of exchange so far invented. And surely, you must accept that the phrase "means of exchange" has to include money, as well as barrels of diesel, cowrie shells etc.?

Put slightly more bluntly: what's your point?

>>The question is not whether you think so, it's whether everyone else does. Obviously they don't agree with you, or it wouldn't be necessary to forcibly restrict their freedom to choose, would it?<<

Hint: that's not logic. They might agree with me for a hundred other reasons. In fact, it might not even cross their minds that they are being "forced" to do anything against their will.

>>On the one hand, you're confusing means of exchange with money<<

As above. Why don't you tell me what you think the difference is?

>>...you're confusing fiat currency with money in general, thinking that, just because fiat currency performs the function of money, therefore nothing else would or could<<

Precisely the opposite. I even suggested alternatives. Only when you rejected those did I propose barter. Which is a genuine means of exchange, by the way, operating in many parts of the world even as we speak.

>>Please you answer my question first. What, according to you, is the point of legal tender laws?<<

To provide a point of reference for the people, that the government can guarantee is an accepted means of exchange that is available to all, and backed by the law of the land.

What it patently does not do, is to restrict trade to that single medium.

Your turn.

My point is that just because a thing is a medium of exchange, doesn’t mean it’s money. I do buy services using diesel. But that doesn’t mean diesel is money does it?

There’s no point discussing it any further if you’re defining money to be any means of exchange. According to that theory, anything exchanged is money, and a barter economy is a money economy. I think it’s incorrect.

“To provide a point of reference for the people, that the government can guarantee is an accepted means of exchange that is available to all, and backed by the law of the land.”

And … what’s the point of that? Putting aside your apparent assumption that government is doing it as some kind of disinterested or benevolent service, why would the persons to whom government is making the guarantee, want or need a guarantee that there is a means of exchange “available to all, and backed by the law of the land”?

For example if you’re buying a loaf of bread, or a house, and the medium of exchange you tender is acceptable to the seller, what do you, or he, care whether the same or a different medium is acceptable to all and backed by the law of the land?

“What it patently does not do, is to restrict trade to that single medium.”

I didn’t say it did, and I know it doesn’t. It restricts *money* to that medium.

But I’m defining money to be the generally accepted medium of exchange; and if it’s a promise redeemable in some other medium, and disputes are settled by payment in that other medium, then it’s that other medium that’s money, not the promise. The promissory instrument is a money substitute.

I think what the legal tender laws do, is establish a government monopoly of the supply of money. I think government has a perpetual interest in inflating the money supply, that fiat currency is one of the means by which it achieves this end, and that in doing so, the state has a conflict of interest with society in general.

That's just silly, Jardine K Jardine.

>>There’s no point discussing it any further if you’re defining money to be any means of exchange. According to that theory, anything exchanged is money, and a barter economy is a money economy. I think it’s incorrect.<<

That's the same logic as "I define dogs to be animals. Cats are animals. So my dog is a cat". Money is not "any means of exchange", just one means of exchange. There are others, it just happens that money is the most convenient.

>>I think what the legal tender laws do, is establish a government monopoly of the supply of money. I think government has a perpetual interest in inflating the money supply, that fiat currency is one of the means by which it achieves this end, and that in doing so, the state has a conflict of interest with society in general.<<

That would explain why you need to define money in such a narrow fashion. If you accept it as simply a convenient means of exchange, all your ideas on what government's motives are will fly out of the window.

I still prefer my explanation. Easier to understand, and far less prone to conspiracy theory.

How is my process of reasoning like that?

You're projecting onto me your own process of reasoning:
“I define a dog to be an animal (I define money to be a species of the general category ‘medium of exchange’). A cat is an animal (another species of medium of exchange is a member of the general category ‘medium of exchange’.) Therefore a cat is a dog (therefore another species of medium of exchange is money.)”

There are a number of problems with your theory:
It defines diesel, and oranges, and eggs, and nails, and TVs, and sticky tape, and farms, - anything that is a means of exchange - as “money”. And it means a barter economy is a money economy. I’ve asked you whether it means that. You haven’t answered. Does it?

Your definition is inconsistent with the definition of money used in the Currency Act; mine isn't. For example, assuming that eggs, being a means of exchange, are “money”, then Section 9 reads: “Every contract… relating to [eggs]… shall be done according to the currency of Australia.”. But according to you, eggs are already money! How does that make sense?

“I still prefer my explanation. Easier to understand…”

If it’s easier to understand, then you should have no problem answering: what’s the point of legal tender laws? If you’re buying a loaf of bread, or a house, and the medium of exchange you tender is acceptable to the seller, what do you, or he, care whether the same or a different medium is acceptable to all and backed by the law of the land?

“and far less prone to conspiracy theory.”

I haven’t said anything about government’s motives or any “conspiracy”. That legal tender laws establish a government monopoly of the supply of money does not depend on their motives. Even if, and whether they are creating a general benefit, is a factual issue in its own right that doesn’t depend on their motive.

If we demolish the government's monopoly on the supply of money and someone else supplies money and I want some of that money? What do I buy it with? Whose money?

I'm sure I'll work it out… Along with Hayek's claim that "it will be issued by private enterprise, because providing the public with good money which it can trust and use can not only be an extremely profitable business… "

Extremely profitable? How so? What, in the money that they've issued? That can't be right…

Because this good money can't be the same thing as the government's bad money so it must be something different and therefore would not be a lowest common denominated currency.

Anyway whilst I sort through that, use the benefit of the fact Australia is a participatory democracy.

Everything is changeable, up to and including the Constitution – by simply convincing sufficient voters of the efficacy of your concepts, Jardine. Since everyone's supposed to act only in their maximal self-interest this should be pretty simple if it's all as hunky dory as you intimate. Exercising their user preferences as it were.

What you should get past is that the legal tender laws existed in Australia before you did. It's not as though they were imposed just to get up your nose. I'm not aware that you're being denied the prospect of emigration – though I am aware from Ludwig's comments that the planet is apparently over populated which would make the prospect of free range homesteading unlikely. Plus, these days most indigenes have, at best, smart phone cameras and Internet access with which to protest invasion or at worst, AK-47s.

Maybe there are some things worse than fiat currency.

Nope, sorry, Jardine K Jardine. Won't wash.

>>You're projecting onto me your own process of reasoning<<

Money is simply one, of a number, of means of exchange. Just as a dog is simply one, of a number, of domesticated animals. Pari passu. They are interchangeable as domestic pets - some people indeed own both (quelle horreure!). Yet you rarely would confuse them with each other.

>>For example, assuming that eggs, being a means of exchange, are “money”<<

We have now agreed that we don't call it money. We call them eggs. Just like we don't call dogs, cats.

>>And it means a barter economy is a money economy. I’ve asked you whether it means that. You haven’t answered. Does it?<<

Not really. The word "barter" in fact directly implies the non-appearance of money. But that does not mean you cannot effectively employ a variety of monetary substitutes, between consenting adults.

Here's someone who agrees with me:

"...two of the author’s main contentions—first that money is not currency and that sovereign support for currency is not particularly important".

Readallaboutit...

http://www.economist.com/news/books-and-arts/21578009-good-guide-stuff-our-pockets-gold-rush

The example employed is centred on a seven-month period in which the Banks in Ireland went on strike in 1970 - gasp! no money!

"As cash ran out, people had to find a way of paying their regular bills, or even just stumping up for a pint of stout in a pub. What actually happened was that businesses started accepting IOUs or cheques for everything, even though there was no telling when the cash would be forthcoming. It helped that a lot of Irish life is lived locally: builders, greengrocers, mechanics and barmen all turned out to be dab hands at personal credit profiling. In short, Ireland developed a new class of money. Its currency was not backed by any central bank, but based solely on informal if surprisingly accurate credit scoring. And the currency was transferable: if certain people said the bond was good, then the bond was good."

That works for me.

>>what’s the point of legal tender laws?<<

I've already addressed that.

http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=14998#259582

No-one agrees with your theory that cream puffs, and dildos, and railway cars are money, because it’s a cr@p theory obviously.

However if invincible ignorance and evasiveness were money, you’d be a millionaire.

Jardine

As Pericles's second I hereby throw in the towel.He's had enough, his egos badly bruised.

He's clearly out of his league in this division. Next bout we'll move him down a grade or three.

Nice try, individual.

>>No-one agrees with your theory that cream puffs, and dildos, and railway cars are money, because it’s a cr@p theory obviously.<<

Correction: that is not my theory.

"Money is simply one, of a number, of means of exchange. Just as a dog is simply one, of a number, of domesticated animals. Pari passu. They are interchangeable as domestic pets - some people indeed own both (quelle horreure!). Yet you rarely would confuse them with each other."

My "theory", as you call it, is that cream puffs will always be cream puffs. They are not money. Our legal tender laws only define what our notes and coins should look like in Australia, just as other countries have similar laws that cover their own notes and coins.

None of which has any bearing at all on what you might persuade Harvey Norman to accept in exchange for a TV set. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if they agreed to take your American Express travellers cheques, denominated in US dollars, if you asked them nicely. They will probably even accept your credit card, that happens to have its point of origin in Romania, despite the fact that that you intend to pay off in Lei.

You will still have some problems persuading them to take the Jardinian dollar, of course. But that's only because you haven't generated the requisite level of trust.

In short, I agree with Felix Martin, the author of "Money: The Unauthorised Biography", when he says i) money is not currency, and ii) sovereign support for currency is not particularly important.

The impact of ii), of course, is that it blows out of the water your "government has a perpetual interest in inflating the money supply, [and] fiat currency is one of the means by which it achieves this". The proof is that if you absent government from the equation, financial life still goes on. If inflation became a problem to the citizenry, they would find, and use, other means to transact. Just as the Irish did in 1970.

Oops, crossed addressee: that was for you, Jardine K. Jardine

"Nice try, individual"

"Oops, crossed addressee: that was for you, Jardine K. Jardine"

Which just proves my point.I'm throwing in towel.

Thank you KarlX

Pericles
Either you deny that there is any significant difference between money and other media of exchange, which is what you've been doing; in which case obviously there is no need or purpose for legal tender laws; which is why, when asked what they are, you haven't been able to explain what benefit they are to their intended beneficiaries.

Or you admit that there is; in which case you concede what is in issue between us.

Either way, you're making a fool of yourself.

Wm Trevor
>“If we demolish the government's monopoly on the supply of money and someone else supplies money and I want some of that money? What do I buy it with? Whose money?”

Okay, money is the generally accepted medium of exchange, which means that other things are exchanged against money. So the price of all those myriad goods and services, is expressed in money. But the “price” of the money that is exchange for them, is not expressed in money, it’s expressed in the particular array of those other goods and services which it is able to purchase in a given transaction.

In other words, the “price” of money is the purchasing power of money (PPM). You "buy" money with the goods or services you exchange for it.

>Extremely profitable? How so? What, in the money that they've issued? That can't be right…

Why not?

>Because this good money can't be the same thing as the government's bad money so it must be something different and therefore would not be a lowest common denominated currency.

Why not?

>“Anyway whilst I sort through that, use the benefit of the fact Australia is a participatory democracy.

>“Everything is changeable, up to and including the Constitution – by simply convincing sufficient voters of the efficacy of your concepts, Jardine. Since everyone's supposed to act only in their maximal self-interest this should be pretty simple if it's all as hunky dory as you intimate. Exercising their user preferences as it were.”

That assumes that the State is more representative of the people, or of society, than those people, or society, are of themselves.

It isn’t. If you want to run that argument, you need to refute all these arguments first:
“Unrepresentative government”
http://economics.org.au/2010/08/unrepresentative-government/

That also assumes that there is no conflict of interest, as concerns the supply of money, between the State and the people. But that’s what’s in issue. So you can’t assume it. Prove it?

You yourself recently said words to that effect that the older you get, the more you are inclined to believe that human action is explained by the tendency of people to try to get and hold power, even unjustly if they can get away with it.

If we gave Jones, or Jardine, a licence to print money, you don’t have any problem seeing the risk that they would just print and spend, print and spend, do you, unjustly enriching themselves by the efforts of others based on the force backing that privilege.

Well? What makes you just assume that legal tender laws must be for some unspecified unexplained general benefit?

The line of reasoning seems to be: “The government does it because it’s good, and we know it’s good because the government does it.”

I’ve shown reason why there is a relevant conflict of interest between the State and the people: The self-granted monopoly over the supply of money enables the State, based on the force of law, and the deception of inflating the money supply, to silently transfer *actual* real wealth – earnt by people’s work, risk and enterprise – from its owners and producers – to a class unjustly privileged to live at others’ expense based on force and fraud.

“... the legal tender laws existed in Australia before you did.”

So what? That doesn’t mean that they don’t establish a government monopoly of the supply of money, on which my argument is based.

“It's not as though they were imposed just to get up your nose.”

That is to personalize the argument. The question is whether you can *refute* it.

“I'm not aware that you're being denied the prospect of emigration …”

Why should I? Why don't the monopolists emigrate? No-one has given any justification of their monopoly of the money supply yet.

“Maybe there are some things worse than fiat currency.”

Like what? Your argument seems to be only “might is right”.

No-one has yet tendered any justification of government’s monopoly of the money supply that makes ethical or economic sense even in its own terms.

Way to go, Jardine K Jardine. Let's twist again.

>>Either you deny that there is any significant difference between money and other media of exchange, which is what you've been doing; in which case obviously there is no need or purpose for legal tender laws; which is why, when asked what they are, you haven't been able to explain what benefit they are to their intended beneficiaries. <<

There is indeed a significant difference between money-as-legal-tender and "other media of exchange" - dildos were one of your examples of choice, I recall.

Money-as-legal-tender provides a recognizable, legally-enforceable, convenient means of exchange. The legal tender laws are designed to protect that means of exchange, by surrounding it with strict definitions of who can make it, what is looks like etc. so that you can tell that what you have in your hand is going to be recognized by Harvey Norman as a valid form of payment. You'd look pretty stupid offering them a dildo, wouldn't you?

Well, most people would anyway.

So, once again, very slowly.

The legal tender laws are in place so that the means of exchange offered is instantly recognizable as such. It is bad form to try to pass off a dildo as a twenty dollar bill, so the government provides a convenient guide that allows the shop assistant to discern the difference between money-as-legal-tender and a dildo. And if you try to cunningly disguise your dildo as a twenty dollar bill, you'll be nicked for forgery.

The benefit of these laws should be obvious, as it prevents the natural confusion that might exist if the currency was not so tightly defined in this way. And having the government at its back, in the shape of a court of law to stop you cheating, adds another level of confidence to the transaction.

But all this still does not preclude your offering a dildo - or an i.o.u, as the Irish did, or cowrie shells, or even a Jardinian dollar - as payment for your TV set, just so long as you don't pretend they are legal tender.

I'm not asking about money-as-legal-tender. I'm asking about money-as-money.

In history, logic and economics, money as money must and does come before any question of money as legal tender. So far you haven't conceded that there is any significant difference between money (as money) and other means of exchange.

So ... is there?

Perhaps a little more clarity is needed in your questions, Jardine K. Jardine.

>>I'm not asking about money-as-legal-tender. I'm asking about money-as-money.<<

You kept banging on earlier about legal tender...

>>I think what the legal tender laws do, is establish a government monopoly of the supply of money... what’s the point of legal tender laws?<< etc. etc.

...now you want to know about "money-as-money".

Fair enough. But let us first agree that "money-as-money" has nothing to do with legal tender, or the Currency Act.

Can we do that? Good.

Your fixation appears to be in the area of what you see as the "government monopoly of the supply of money", and your issue with this is that the government then uses this monopoly to force inflation into the economy, for its own purposes.

What you haven't explained is the method by which they achieve this. So I'll take a guess, and suggest that it is their ability to influence the amount of money in the economy, through the process of issuing and redeeming government bonds, that you object to. If it is not this particular practice that upsets you, perhaps you could enlighten me as to what it might be.

It would also help if you were able to find a link between this practice - or whatever activity you see as being the problem - and the "monopoly" over the currency that you identify, and that also offends you in some way.

As far as I can tell, government intervention in the money market is largely dictated by the demand that exists within the economy. After all, no-one is compelled to buy or sell the instruments that they create, unlike centrally-managed economies such as China. If you have evidence to the contrary, I'd be interested to hear it.

Perhaps a little less supercilious condescension is needed in your posts, Pericles.

The issues between us started from Arjay’s question:
>>JKJ,why cannot you as an individual,go to your garage and create money from nothing just like a few elite banksters?

I then pondered the dubious negotiability of my fiat, and asked what makes the fiat of government any less dubious:
“… what make the "genuine article" of "money", whose value comes from the authority of the stamp thereon, any more genuine, than the readiness and ability of the Commonwealth's monopoly forces, to do just that [i.e. enforce a monopoly that allows them to issue paper money which they criminalise for anyone else]?

The point of departure for our current debate was your reply:
“The value of money does not come, as you suggest, "from the authority of the stamp thereon", but from the willingness of the people to use it.” And “The "Commonwealth's monopoly forces" have very little to do with it …

I took issue with that because I think it’s partly true – the value comes from the willingness of the people to use it - and partly untrue.

I can use 10 x 100-dollar bills to buy a valuable TV. But the same physical media, without the stamp, are worthless, aren’t they? So clearly it’s nonsense to say that the value of fiat paper money “does not come from the authority of the stamp thereon”, and that the government’s fiat has “very little do with it”.

And clearly the people’s first preferences for money (not *money substitutes*) have been forcibly overridden by the legal tender laws, otherwise there’d be no need or purpose for such laws to restrict their freedom of choice of money, would there?

You went off on a tangent of irrelevance to the effect that money substitutes might be just as acceptable as money, thus confusing money with other means of exchange, including money substitutes.

Of course if there were really no significant difference between money and
a) other means of exchange, and
b) money substitutes,
then there’d be no need and no purpose for legal tender laws, would there?

“What you haven't explained is the method by which they [the government] achieve this [forcing inflation into the economy].

They do it in a number of ways involving both money and money substitutes, but I can’t explain them while you remain confused as to the basic distinction between money and not-money. The unclarity is all your own.

So I ask you again … is there a significant difference between money per se and other means of exchange including money substitutes, or not?

You leave more questions than answers, Jardine K. Jardine.

We need a common understanding of your notion of "money", which seems difficult to pin down. Take this sentence, for example:

>>And clearly the people’s first preferences for money (not *money substitutes*) have been forcibly overridden by the legal tender laws, otherwise there’d be no need or purpose for such laws to restrict their freedom of choice of money, would there?<<

What is the difference between the money that is "the people’s first preference", and the money that you judge is forcibly imposed upon them by the legal tender laws. You have excluded "money substitutes", which would presumably include the Jardinian Dollar, so I am at a loss to imagine what else is left.

Either you use the money that the government has described - for your benefit - as the genuine article. Or you use something else, that is (apparently) not a money substitute. My question is, what is that "something else"?

Then we might revisit this:

>>I can use 10 x 100-dollar bills to buy a valuable TV. But the same physical media, without the stamp, are worthless, aren’t they? So clearly it’s nonsense to say that the value of fiat paper money “does not come from the authority of the stamp thereon”, and that the government’s fiat has “very little do with it”.<<

The "same physical media", as you describe it can only be a) a forgery that tries to pass itself off as the real thing (i.e., the one with the stamp), or b) what you describe as a money substitute, a promissory note for example.

In the case of a) you are clearly trying to defraud the retailer, and the position of the government stamp in the transaction is simply to allow the retailer to tell the difference between a genuine note and a forgery.

In b), the retailer is completely free to accept or reject your offer to pay with a money substitute, in which case the "government stamp" does not come into the equation.

And I'm not at all sure about the "of course" here, Jardine K Jardine.

>>Of course if there were really no significant difference between money and
a) other means of exchange, and
b)money substitutes,
then there’d be no need and no purpose for legal tender laws, would there? <<

Well actually, there is. The purpose of legal tender laws is to enable you and I to recognize the difference between a genuine twenty dollar bill, and a forgery. The Currency Act describes what is legal tender in Australia, and the definition of legal tender is simply "the legally valid currency that may be offered in payment of a debt and that a creditor must accept"

Note the two verbs there: legal tender *may* be offered in payment, and if it is, the creditor must accept it That is to say, the creditor cannot rush off to a court of law and sue you for non-payment, if you have offered legal tender. He does, however, retain the option to accept, or reject, any other instrument, since you are not obliged to offer legal tender as payment: you have the option to do so, but you are not obliged to do so.

>>So I ask you again … is there a significant difference between money per se and other means of exchange including money substitutes, or not?<<

Yes, there is. Money that meets the definition of legal tender in the Currency Act cannot be rejected as payment of a debt. All other instruments may be either accepted, or rejected.

Pericles

I’m asking about the conceptual category of money itself, of which fiat money and legal tender are sub-categories, whereas you’re talking about money defined as legal tender.

So in a discussion whether government monopoly control of the supply of money confers a general benefit on society, or rather benefits State agents at the expense of society in general, your theory has no explaining power because you have no concept of money other than as whatever the State says it is!

Your process of reasoning is indeed
A: “The State’s monopoly of the supply of money is presumptively beneficial to society”
B: “How do you know?”
A: “Because there’s no other monetary alternative, by definition”.

However money existed before legal tender, didn’t it? Yes. By several thousands of years? Yes.

And we know of other different species of money from history – shells, and wampum, and tobacco, and gold, and holey dollars, and so on – I mean not as commodities, but as *money*.

And legal tender laws make one particular favoured species of money legal tender – therefore they must make all other possible species of money not-legal tender, mustn’t they? Yes. And therefore those other species exist as a conceptual category? Yes. And the whole point of legal tender laws is to stop those other possible species of money from existing in fact, isn’t it? Yes.

Therefore legal tender money is a species of the genus money, and your limiting the definition of money to legal tender only, is factually and conceptually false.

For example in the early days of the settlement at Sydney, competing monies circulated in the market, both those of private and of State provenance, e.g. rum, holey dollars, dumps, Spanish royals, sovereigns.

(The famous thaler – silver coin, origin of the term dollar – was of private provenance. It was very popular for centuries precisely because of the notorious debasement of coinage by royal i.e. State providers of money.)

I don’t know if any money were legal tender at that stage - c. 1805(?) - I don’t think they were because rum was money. But let’s just assume for the sake of argument that there is no legal tender, in other words, a creditor is free to accept payment in a particular money if he wants, and not if doesn’t want.

Now in that situation, there are multiple circulating monies competing in the market, and as yet no question of legal tender or fiat money.

The evolution from commodity money to fiat legal tender paper money, follows the following conceptual course:
1. Commodity exchange – barter – oranges for armchairs.
2. People develop money because of the inconveniences of barter:
a. Difficulty finding someone making armchairs who wants your oranges – ‘double coincidence of wants’
b. Difficulty getting change of an armchair – “divisibility”
c. Difficulty storing oranges for retirement – “store of value”
d. Difficulty carrying oranges and armchairs – “portability”
Commodity money is the first to develop. A particular commodity is generally sought-after for its utility or beauty etc. So people seek it specifically to give away later in exchange for something else – i.e. as *money*. This, not legal tender, is the classic defining characteristic of money per se – i.e. the most generally acceptable medium of exchange which we get specifically to give away later in exchanges to get around the problems of barter.
The classic example of commodity money is gold, valued firstly for its commodity value e.g. jewellery, and because everyone wants it, later sought as a medium of exchange. Enter money.

3. Next we get money substitutes. You deposit your gold for safe-keeping. The safekeeper gives you a receipt “This house promises to pay the bearer one (1) ounce of gold on demand”. When buying stuff, you can tender this note as payment and the creditor may accept it because he is confident the safekeeper will redeem it for gold. This is the origin of “banknotes” – paper money. They are *substitutes* because they are redeemable in money in specie, e.g. cheques, promissory notes, credit cards.
4. At this conceptual stage there is still no legal tender. Everyone is free to offer their money on the market. Now imagine a person wants to pass off as money a gold coin debased with 90% tin, or paper "money" (not money substitute - money) in specie, the supply of which he can increase at will. No-one would ever accept it! He is unable to force them to exchange valuable goods for his rubbish money.
5. But government can, and that’s exactly what they do. Enter legal tender. Using their monopoly of force, States pass laws that a creditor must accept payment in the State's nominated money, or lose his bargain, i.e. forego the use of money. The effect is to monopolise the supply of money, to force everyone else to use government’s inferior product which would be rejected in the market. We know this it true because otherwise there’d be no need to pass a law requiring it to be accepted!
At this stage there is still no fiat money. But government can, and governments did and do, debase the currency, for example by coin clipping, or by adding tin or brass. The effect is to defraud the population, in every way as it would be fraudulent for a private provider to debase coinage. Only governments can and do carry on the fraud openly, and compel everyone to submit to it.
6. Fiat money develops when government finally declares that money is whatever the government says it is – it is nothing but the force-monopolists' “let it be so”.

It is that last development that you have totally confused with money as a general category of the most-acceptable medium of exchange.

So my answer to your question:
“What is the difference between the money that is "the people’s first preference", and the money that you judge is forcibly imposed upon them by the legal tender laws.”

Is:
What they they would have chosen to use as money if the legal tender laws did not exist.

But your theory has no way of answering that question. It lacks the conceptual category of money that is not government monopoly inflato-rama paper rubbish.

Legal tender laws originated because States notoriously kept debasing their coinage, and private providers of money kept outcompeting them in the market.

As for the alleged benefits of legal tender laws, please try explaining what they are, this time without confusing money per se with legal tender.

For example, the people of Paraguay use a different species of money than you use, to carry on transactions in which you have no direct interest. Is it a detriment to you that they use a different money? No. So why is the case any different as concerns transactions in Australia in which you have no interest? So long as a seller agrees to accept what you tender, what is it to you if other people elsewhere accept some other species of money, whether they are in Paraguay or Australia?

We can see how my theory explains the facts of legal tender. There is a conflict of interest between the State and everyone else as concerns the supply of money. Legal tender laws benefit the State at the expense of society in general, because they privilege State agents to pass off inferior money, and to steal from everyone else by inflating the supply at will, all backed by their monopoly of force.

But how does your theory explain it? Why is it a general benefit to society for sellers to be compelled to accept a money they would prefer not to accept, or lose their bargain? What about the detriments of inflation?

It is a bit of a one-sided discussion though, isn't it Jardine K Jardine.

>>So in a discussion whether government monopoly control of the supply of money confers a general benefit on society, or rather benefits State agents at the expense of society in general, your theory has no explaining power<<

You have asserted that the government has "monopoly control over the supply of money" without proof, and then proceed to wrap all your rationale around that single, eminently false, assertion. You must admit, that is highly limiting to any real discussion, when you provide the answer within the question.

But what is it about this money?

>>I’m asking about the conceptual category of money itself, of which fiat money and legal tender are sub-categories, whereas you’re talking about money defined as legal tender.<<

But as we have already established, right here on this thread, if you are able to lump all sub-categories into your definition of "money", then we are able to also include "shells, and wampum, and tobacco, and gold, and holey dollars, and so on – I mean not as commodities, but as *money*"

As we have also agreed, some time ago, a promissory note from the Clydesdale Bank is highly acceptable as money, in many parts of the world. And we have also noted that in many countries whose government also has Currency and Legal Tender laws, there exists a parallel market in which the value perceived by the user is recognized through a different exchange rate. Which could just as easily apply to your Jardinian money.

So your working definition of the particular money over which the government has monopoly control seems to full of holes. Which generally is not a term used where a monopoly is concerned.

-contd-

This is I think at the heart of your confusion:

>>And legal tender laws make one particular favoured species of money legal tender – therefore they must make all other possible species of money not-legal tender, mustn’t they? Yes.<<

Legal tender laws exist for identification purposes, and to ensure creditors don't wriggle out of a legitimate payment when it is made. They do not make other forms of payment illegal, however.

It goes like this: here's a million Australian dollars to clear my debt with you. Assuming it doesn't bounce, you are obliged to accept it. Or I could say, here's a million Jardinian dollars to clear my debt. You are not obliged to accept this as payment, but it is not illegal to do so. So, even though the Jardinian dollar is not-legal-tender, it is not illegal to tender it.

Your habit of answering your own question also confuses you.

>>And therefore those other species exist as a conceptual category? Yes. And the whole point of legal tender laws is to stop those other possible species of money from existing in fact, isn’t it? Yes.<<

No. See above. The purpose of the legal tender laws is to ensure that the creditor cannot refuse a legitimate payment, not to make any other form of payment illegal.

>>Therefore legal tender money is a species of the genus money, and your limiting the definition of money to legal tender only, is factually and conceptually false<<

With respect, it is you who is banging on about the limiting powers of the legal tender laws. And you are right, anyone who limits themselves to this narrow definition of money is kidding themselves.

So, we have agreed that money is not just legal tender. What we haven't established is how the government maintains control over all these other forms of money. Or, in your words, "government monopoly control of the supply of money".

If the legal tender laws only cover legal tender, how do they manage to exert a monopoly influence over all the other stuff?

Thanks for your attempts to answer questions I posed, JKJ… I really intended them as indications of topics for my further research after I had new floors and a new roof and didn't have the preoccupation of a house full of carpenters, mechanical plumbers and tilers.

[As an experiment (given some of the discussion above) I did ask them if they'd take your dildos but though there was what I took as a momentary flicker of interest from an apprentice the answer was no.]

But a response is in order, even if the thread has moved on:

">“If we demolish the government's monopoly on the supply of money and someone else supplies money and I want some of that money? What do I buy it with? Whose money?”

Okay, money is the generally accepted medium of exchange, which means that other things are exchanged against money. So the price of all those myriad goods and services, is expressed in money. But the “price” of the money that is exchange for them, is not expressed in money, it’s expressed in the particular array of those other goods and services which it is able to purchase in a given transaction.

In other words, the “price” of money is the purchasing power of money (PPM). You "buy" money with the goods or services you exchange for it."

Not necessarily. I can assure you that the price for the money I received for a mortgage was, by the time the mortgage was cleared, about twice the amount of money I bought.

">Extremely profitable? How so? What, in the money that they've issued? That can't be right…
Why not?"

Because it's impossible to have more of the same money that you've issued then you've, well… issued. Or are you imagining some version of quantum physics applying to this issued money?

tbc:

">Because this good money can't be the same thing as the government's bad money so it must be something different and therefore would not be a lowest common denominated currency.

Why not?"

Because A is not B. Therefore it is different.

">“Everything is changeable, up to and including the Constitution - by simply convincing sufficient voters of the efficacy of your concepts, Jardine. Since everyone's supposed to act only in their maximal self-interest this should be pretty simple if it's all as hunky dory as you intimate. Exercising their user preferences as it were.”

That assumes that the State is more representative of the people, or of society, than those people, or society, are of themselves.

It isn’t. If you want to run that argument, you need to refute all these arguments first: “Unrepresentative government”"

I need refute no such thing. I made a factual statement.

Your uninterest in or incapacity to bother pursuing such a course of action is entirely your prerogative.

"The line of reasoning seems to be: “The government does it because it’s good, and we know it’s good because the government does it.”"

Or we could characterise it as the will of the people evolves and is expressed through government over time.

But I accept that you seem to have no theory of adaptive social cooperation beyond individual action and would disagree.

"“I'm not aware that you're being denied the prospect of emigration …”
Why should I?… "

Forget I attempted a display of empathy with a proffered solution. By all means stay and be unhappy.

"“Maybe there are some things worse than fiat currency.”
Like what? Your argument seems to be only “might is right”."

Kardashians, terrorist bomb murderers, osteo carcinoma, psychopaths who enjoy torturing kittens… Lots of things.

Pericles
“If the legal tender laws only cover legal tender, how do they manage to exert a monopoly influence over all the other stuff?”

By your own admission, they don’t only cover legal tender.

If the State, by instrument of law, makes itself the only supplier of money that is capable of being “identified” as “legitimate” payment, then obviously it’s a monopoly, and your entire rebuttal collapses.

As for your idea that exchange can take place in other media of exchange, that doesn’t make them money – cream puffs and dildos.

Besides, the entire general issue is what makes a payment “legitimate” if one party to the transaction doesn’t agree to it but for the legal tender laws. Your argument is only that the legal tender law “identifies” legitimate payment, and what makes payment legitimate is the legal tender law!

You’re just going round and round in circles.

You haven’t begun to establish that legal tender laws confer a general social benefit, and haven’t begun to deal with the issues whether the State has a conflict of interest with the rest of society in granting itself a monopoly. For example, in your blind assumption that legal tender laws must be beneficial, what account have you taken of the inflation of the money supply since they were introduced? Of the billions of dollars worth of real wealth transferred from the productive class to the State? Of the economic damage done by such inflation?

Wm Trevor

“As an experiment (given some of the discussion above) I did ask them if they'd take your dildos…”

The idea that something is money because it’s a means of exchange is Pericles’, not mine.

“Not necessarily. I can assure you that the price for the money I received for a mortgage was, by the time the mortgage was cleared, about twice the amount of money I bought.”

What you bought the money for, was the array of goods and services you gave for it.

>“">Extremely profitable? How so? What, in the money that they've issued? That can't be right…

The supply of money can be profitable in the array of goods the supplier gets for it.

For example, the maker of money might make it for a cost to him of 100 units of a basket of consumer goodies. But he might be able to sell it for a profit to him of 105 units of the same basket of consumer goodies. An easy to understand example is the gumment. They make a 100 bill using a piece of plastic polymer and ink that costs virtually nothing. But they can pass it off in the marketplace for a profit of a much more valuable array of goods. That high profit is facilitated by its monopoly of issuing money. But a private provider would also be capable of supplying money at a profit, as with any other good. For example, see the thaler, a privately-issued silver money: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thaler

“">Because this good money can't be the same thing as the government's bad money so it must be something different and therefore would not be a lowest common denominated currency.”

But why must money be government-issued money in order to be a lowest common denominated currency?

“I made a factual statement.”

No you didn’t. You made a statement loaded with value judgments, and assumptions to the effect that the government is more representative of the people, than the people are of themselves. If you can’t defend your ideas, you should just say so, not take refuge behind evasive ad hominem nonsense.

“Your uninterest in or incapacity to bother pursuing such a course of action is entirely your prerogative.”

That’s only more of your argument that might is right.

“Or we could characterise it as the will of the people evolves and is expressed through government over time.”

We could also characterize witch-burning as “the will of the people”.

But more importantly, the electoral system provides no evidence whatsoever that any given act of government represents the will of the people, so if the electoral system doesn’t provide it, what does? You're parroting brainwashed fiction.

“But I accept that you seem to have no theory of adaptive social cooperation beyond individual action and would disagree.”

It’s not about individual action versus social co-operation. If it was, you would have been able to show why the legal tender laws confer a general benefit; and why they don’t favour State agents at the expense of society in general. You haven’t even begun to join issue.

The issue is between voluntary social productive action, or coercive anti-social destructive action. You’re defending the latter. Perhaps you should think why for a change.

>“Forget I attempted a display of empathy with a proffered solution.”

It’s not a display of empathy to tell me to piss off if I challenge an abuse of power which you’re mindlessly trying but failing to defend. All you’ve done is personalise the argument to me when I have shown your assumptions to be without basis in evidence or reason.

>>"“Maybe there are some things worse than fiat currency.”
Like what? ...

>Kardashians, terrorist bomb murderers, osteo carcinoma, psychopaths who enjoy torturing kittens… Lots of things.

Is that your main argument? So in other words, you *are" arguing that might is right.

All
Thus all the defences of government’s supply of money degenerate, on being challenged, into mere circularity, ad hom, and blind support of power for its own sake. Notice how no-one has made the slightest attempt to address the real issues, of the use by the State of money laws to channel untold billions of real wealth from the productive class to the political class; all by violating the rule of law and the liberties of the people?

I am a little surprised that you still don't get it, Jardine K Jardine, and more than a little suspicious that you are deliberately misrepresenting my position in order to validate your own.

>>If the State, by instrument of law, makes itself the only supplier of money that is capable of being “identified” as “legitimate” payment, then obviously it’s a monopoly, and your entire rebuttal collapses.<<

The State has a "monopoly", if you like to describe it so, only as the authority to determine what, and what is not, legal tender in Australia.

Legal tender being defined as the means of payment that you cannot refuse to recognize in the resolution of a debt, and not as the only means of payment permissible in law. I'm perplexed that you seem unable to grasp this very simple point.

It is only the "supplier" of money in the sense that it retains control of the issuance of legal-tender-conformant banknotes and coins, to ensure they are consistent with the laws that it has created.

>>As for your idea that exchange can take place in other media of exchange, that doesn’t make them money<<

We've been around this particular tree a number of times. You asserted earlier...

>>Therefore legal tender money is a species of the genus money<<

I couldn't agree more. And it would greatly help the discussion along if you gave examples of other species of money that happen not to be legal tender? I have offered promissory notes, which you have rejected for some reason you have yet to explain. You must have others in mind that I haven't considered.

So far, all we have determined is that the State has a rigid definition of what cannot be refused in payment of a debt. But that surely cannot be stretched to include all forms of money that may be used for the same purpose?

This discussion lacks your definition of money, together with some examples. Care to share?